


Needing Space

by nonsannochetuseilantartide



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Aliens, Alternate Universe - Space, Alternate Universe - Space Opera, But mostly angst, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Like Lot of Angst, Space Whump, Whump, and fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28507674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonsannochetuseilantartide/pseuds/nonsannochetuseilantartide
Summary: If you search the definition of space station on Google, the first result is (quoting Wikipedia): a space station is a man-made construction designed to make human beings live in open space.In fact, if you live the experience directly the correct definition would be more like “buzzing tin can where a bunch of people that hated each others has to fight for survival day after day in a place totally hostile to the human race”.And Jonathan Sims knows this, because among all the jerk that became the official of communications on the U.S.S. Magnus was he.A round of applause for our protagonist, please.Stuck for a year and three quarters on what he calls “space shack”, he tries to maintain seriousness, and keep on with his work waiting to come back with his feet down to Earth.Complex operation.
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Sasha James/Tim Stoker
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Needing Space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time Jonathan tries his new form of venting, explaining everything that happens on the station to a tape recorder, he finds a new guest to keep him company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there will be one spoiler for the film Cloverfield Paradox.

-It’s embarrassing, isn’t it? I mean, I talk alone in space. I talk alone in space to a small radio, hoping someone will hear me. God, I don’t expect anyone to come to me, pat me on the shoulder and saying “ehy, are you okay?” or stuff like that, but mostly because...er...let’s say if I don’t speak to someone I’ll lose my head- Jonathan was floating, tightening the legs to the chest and feeling all the guts into the meat bag that was his body like the fill of a raviolo used as a tennis ball. 

It’s been over there for over a year, but he wasn’t used to zero gravity yet. 

And maybe never would have. 

In films, the ones located in space stations, there was gravity. They were here, even running into the corridors. 

But he didn’t, he was a loser and took zero gravity. 

Sighed heavily, finding himself upside down. 

-Anyway, here we are. Or like, here I am- the hands were tight on the recorder -I’m Jonathan Sims, communications officer on the space station U.S.S. Magnus. I decided, for...personal reasons, that I’ll start recording a running commentary about whatever happens here on board- he wanted to add a thing like “because I am the only with common sense, apparently”, but he just sighed. 

Again.

-So, first of all, hello posterity, or third grades that will listen to this when I’ll use this instead of making a real live connection with schools, let’s start with the basics: space sucks, because nothing is good. Everything is aseptic, gravity has not been received, all the other crew members are pompous idiots and you’re here like an idiot in your little locked room while the world distant from you keeps spinning full of people with far less problems than you-.

Use a recorder as a therapist could have turned a good way to spent time, waiting for some signal to catch. Sure, maybe using an object to vent instead of, I don’t know, a person wasn’t the most sane of the behaviours, but his mental health was already fucked so why don’t try?

-My job- persisted, trying to sit on the chair and adjusting the security belt -it’s based on communications. I stay here, and someone decides to send me messages. I decrypt them, and then I decide to panic-

Well, it never happened, in all six hundred thirty eight days he was up there. 

Before you think things like “oh my gosh the aliens”, I’d like to say that life is not a film. We’re not in Passengers, we’re not in 2001 A Space Odyssey and we’re not in Alien, because going to sleep for months and months would have been a cure-all for my sleep deprivations effects that I carry since high school but ehy! We’re losers! I’m a loser, in any case. We need to be as vigil as sentinels in the night-

“As vigil as sentinels in the night”, what a metaphor. 

He scratched his head, that nest of blackish hair that were growing endlessly kept only by a scrunchie. -When...when I was a kid I wanted to become an astronaut. I really wanted to become an astronaut, you know? To go into space. Because I thought it was cool! Because I thought it was super cool!- he returned to see the window in front of him, that immensity of stars and space that now had nothing poetic. 

-But no. I took it in the ass, again. Because at this point I’m an expert in taking it in the ass-.

How could he keep talking? Everything sounded stale, every day was identical, here. 

The last time he felt sincere thrill it was when Tonner and Hussain got into a fight. He didn’t remembered the reason, but he could remember the screams in front of his door and his raging desire to crack his head on the edge of a table. 

It happened one month ago? Two? He didn’t cared. 

Space really made it clear how many things were just Earth inventions.

Okay, maybe that fight wasn’t even that funny, as a situation.

But, everything was boring, here. 

And it was a positive thing, because boredom is equivalent to safety. 

And boredom, in a space station, is the best thing you could ever have.

Surely, in Alien they didn’t get bored. 

-There are other members, with me. They all come from the United Kingdom or United States. It’s an anglophone operation, if I can say- he stayed in silence for a bit, thinking. 

-No, wait. There’s an Irish, Blackwood. Blackwood is Irish. He’s a...funny guy? An astrobiologist. A civilian. We never talked much. I don’t understand what’s doing into his lab, I’ve never been here, but maybe it was something...that scientists do. He looks like a punk. Okay, we all look like punks. Commander Bouchard says that we’re debauched wretches and he don’t understand how we managed to come here and stay alive. Maybe we’re going to die soon, like in a fire or something like that. Maybe the aliens will come and eat us. A Blackwood’s experiment will go to shit and boom! We’ll die- 

He grabbed a pen, one of those magnetically bonded, and started to chew them. -These records don’t make sense, perfect. Posterity will have to settle-.

The posterity always have to settle, at the end of the day. 

-I’ve never been outside, like the outside outside, but it’s great. If you go out and if your suit is not well setted, you die. If something goes wrong, you die. If you take a wrong step, you die. Win win situation, really. Everywhere, there’s nothing. A meteorite hits you, and you die. You get too far, and you die. You even die in a bad way: or you explode, you go too distant until you, well, die. Maybe I’ve said too many times “you die”, in this recording. I hope no one started to cry-.

It was a bore, staying here. A big, fat bore. But he didn’t had anything else to do, just staying here and float. 

-You know the end of Cloverfield Paradox where she falls down to Earth and gets eaten by the giant monster? Well, that’s my worst nightmare. I am being a fucking paranoid, here. Or maybe I’ve always being a paranoid and space truly has the power to exaggerating everything-

And he was right, of course. 

He tied the belt to his lower belly, feeling for an instant a feeling of safety, control.

Zero gravity made him detach from the sitting almost immediately, making an unsatisfied grimace on his face. 

Typical. 

-Yeah. Everything’s weird. Not bad, just...weird- he just said, letting the air out of his bored mouth.

-In space anything has sense, in fact. You can do to sleep and waking…- while opening his eyes when before they were half-closed, he saw a water drop bobbing a few inches from his nose.  
Widened his eyes.

Water? Water here? Impossible, you could drink only in special rooms (a single drop of water in the wrong place and bye bye). 

Absurd. 

It was a small drop, followed by a bigger one. And a bigger one. And a bigger one.

Jonathan raised his head toward the metal ceiling. 

Upon his head there was an octopus.

An octopus. Eight tentacles, a slimy head. It was glued with the suction cups to the metal, his mouths searching for water. 

Why there was an octopus into his room? Why there was a damn octopus in his room?  
An octopus? In his room?

An octopus. 

In his room. 

In space. 

Jonathan held his breath for what he thought there were hours, uncertain about what to do. First of all, that octopus was real?

There was really a fucking octopus in his room?

Jonathan opened the communication, direct to doctor Blackwood.

Because it was his fault for sure. 

-Yeah?- the voice arrived crackly to his ears, even tough it was calm. Martin Blackwood always had a voice too calm. 

-There’s an octopus in my room?- murmured the official, keeping his tongue between his teeth so he wouldn’t scream like an idiot. -There’s an octopus in my room! There’s an octopus in my room!-.

-An...an octopus?- the crackly voice began more serious. 

-An octopus. A cephalopod- it moved! It moved! -A thing with eight legs and suction cups and so much desire to cling to my face!-

What if it was an alien? Uh? 

-I know what an octopus is! What colour is it?-

-What...colour is it?-

-The colour. What is it. It’s red or it has circles on it?-

he looked at the bizarre guest with a closer look, holding the fingers on the armchairs of the chair, fortunately for him, to the floor. It was small, smaller than the ones he has seen at the aquarium, and it was yellowish. On his skin, there were a lot of blue circles, like the decoration of the walls of the bedroom of a kid. They seemed to pulse. 

-Circles. Blue- whispered ahain, keeping the head towards the octopus. 

A second of silence. 

A silence full of tension, small noises from that space shack to make a background.

An heavy sight from the other. 

-Stay calm, don’t get near. If it gets near to you, run-

-And if it touch me?-

-Choose a god and pray-

What a reassurance. 

He loosed his belt, going away from the octopus, and waited. 

-Well, ladies and gents- a few minutes passed, watching that damn octopus staying here, still. But, poor octopus. Who knows how scared it was, how disoriented! 

Maybe he could talk with it, making a conversation. 

-We have a new host, mister...mister Admiral, ladies and gents- muttered. 

He was completely losing his head. 

-How are you? Are you okay?- his voice betrayed his distress, even tough he had a strict face. 

The octopus didn’t moved a step. Or to better say, a suction cup. 

-What’s your favourite film? Finding Nemo?-

No appreciation for his sense of humor. 

He snorted. 

That thing had the capacity to kill him in a second. 

-Come on, come on...when’s that guy coming? When’s that guy coming?!- in one click, he punched the hole behind him, finding himself listing a series of imprecations and cursing his mortal body. 

A punch against metal had certainly hurt him more than the station.

And And in the meantime, he just kept twirling, legs tied to his chest.

Breathing with the nose not to panic. Slowly. Slowly. 

Wonderful. 

That octopus was still. Was still. Was still. 

He heard the door opening, and a figure appearing. 

He was thick, but in the but the suit of the station (the one that he hardly ever wore on the top, he hated the fabric) was perfect on him. The curly and reddish hair (more blond? More blond than red) were kept in order with an green headband, one of those for children in plastic, and the glasses kept with a lace around his head were used to help his little eyes blue as the sky and determined like a general in front of the enemy army. 

His hands were covered by a pair of yellow and shining gloves, like the octopus’ skin, holding a bucket and a pincer with the tips softened by rubber inserts.

For Jon, from now on, the Savior par excellence would look like that.

-Good morning, official- He was out of breath, and his tone wasn’t very calm. 

-Doctor- Jon saluted back, making a small movement with his head. -There’s an octopus on the ceiling- 

-I noticed. His name is Fizgerald, is one of my boys. I don’t know how he managed to arrive here but…-

-Could you please remove it?-

The man sighed heavily, arriving near the small creature and grabbing it with the pincer.  
The octopus gave up immediately, like he was relived to see the astrobiologist entering in that land of horrors leaded by a little too talkative king. 

Jonathan held his breath again, watching the strange guest going into the bucket and sticking on the bottom.

-Here we go. Now I’ll take you back home- with a satisfied grin, Martin looked at the other, still curled up in a fetal position in a corner of the room. -Thank you for alerting me. This dude is small but is quite lethal- shrugged his shoulders, closing the bucket with some plastic. . -You know, hapalochlaena lunata are like this-.

He looked like he was talking about his dog.

Jonathan had a few questions wrapped inside his head, from the most banal ones like “why there was an octopus here?” from the most original ones such as “why do you keep a blue ringed octopus in the lab?” or the most classic ones “why naming an octopus Fizgerald?!”, but he remained in silence, just making movements with his head. 

-Sorry if he scared you-

-It’s nothing. It’s just- Jonathan looked again at the bucket searching the right words. -On the Earth he would be an ingredient to deep fry. He’s a small octopus, a small thing. Nothing weird-

-He could kill an adult in half an hour, with all his toxins-

-Ah-

-But this wasn’t the case! You’re a lucky man, official Sims!- proclaimed with a smile, going to the door. -There will be the film...night? In a few hours. I mean, we sit here and watch a film because it’s part of the mental health program-

-I know-

He always hated that thing. Watching films with strangers was the worst feeling ever. No inside jokes, no laughs. Just...strangers watching a film. Like going to a small cinema alone.

Ew. 

-It’s my turn to choose the film- added the astrobiologist. -We’ll see…-

-Battle of Five Armies? For the sixth time?-

in that place, there were four dvds: Battle of Five Armies, Monsters vs Aliens, Life is Beautiful and Christmas on Mars, because if they had to die here and if the station had to be dismantled after the death of the whole crew, thinking about people finding Christmas on Mars’ dvd was hilarious.

It was a Stoker idea.

Martin lowered his eyes. -Well...yes? Yes. Sorry for the bother. Have a good day-

-Of course I’ll come- muttered the other as a reply, feeling the infamous needle of sense of guilt poking his throat. -I like that film-.

Lie. 

-Oh, great- the other’s face lighted up a bit, while taking the door to go out. -So...see you later?-

-See you later- Jon made a brief smile -thanks again-

-You’re welcome-

And then he found alone again.

For a bunch of seconds he asked himself if it wasn’t just a joke of his mind, but the mark of humidity left upon his head was real enough. 

-Well, dear posterity- sighed -welcome to the circus-.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me? Writing something a biiiiit more serious than usual? More likely than you think.


End file.
